Life poems

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Rosie Roberts

© Edgar Lee Masters

I was sick, but more than that, I was mad
At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life.
So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria:
"I am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River,

Morning

© Alaric Alexander Watts

Morn,
Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand
Unbars the gates of light. ~ MILTON.

Amelia Garrick

© Edgar Lee Masters

Yes, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush
In a forgotten place near the fence
Where the thickets from Siever's woods
Have crept over, growing sparsely.

O Glorious France

© Edgar Lee Masters

You have become a forge of snow-white fire,
A crucible of molten steel, O France!
Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn
And fade in light for you, O glorious France!

Macquarie the shearer had met with an accident. To tell the truth, he had been in a drunken row at a wayside shanty, from which he had escaped with three fractured ribs, a cracked head, and various minor abrasions. His dog, Tally, had been a sober but savage participator in the drunken row, and had escaped with a broken leg.

Macquarie afterwards shouldered his swag and staggered and struggled along the track ten miles to the Union-Town Hospital. Lord knows how he did it. He didn't exactly know himself. Tally limped behind all the way on three legs. The doctors examined the man's injuries and were surprised at his endurance.

Reuben Pantier

© Edgar Lee Masters

Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,
Your love was not all in vain.
I owe whatever I was in life
To your hope that would not give me up,

Serepta Mason

© Edgar Lee Masters

My life's blossom might have bloomed on all sides
Save for a bitter wind which stunted my petals
On the side of me which you in the village could see.
From the dust I lift a voice of protest:

Father Prayer

© Margaret Widdemer

Lord God, Who let Your baby son

Pass earthward where the joys were few

Nancy Knapp

© Edgar Lee Masters

Well, don't you see this was the way of it:
We bought the farm with what he inherited,
And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning
His fathers mind against the rest of them.

John Hancock Otis

© Edgar Lee Masters

As to democracy, fellow citizens,
Are you not prepared to admit
That I, who inherited riches and was to the manor born,
Was second to none in Spoon River

Father Malloy

© Edgar Lee Masters

You are over there, Father Malloy,
Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,
Not here with us on the hill --
Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision

Willie Pennington

They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
Inherited only their residue of power.

Polyphemus

ACIS ``You are brighter than either. I cannot descry you
From radiant ripple until I come nigh you.
I lose you, I find you, again you grow dimmer,
Till round me seems nothing but shadow and shimmer.
'Tis your golden-rayed ringlets that baffle and blind me.''

A Mother's Wail

© Henry Timrod

My babe! my tiny babe! my only babe!
My single rose-bud in a crown of thorns!
My lamp that in that narrow hut of life,
Whence I looked forth upon a night of storm!
Burned with the lustre of the moon and stars!

Thursos Landing

In the night Reave dreamed that Helen
Lay with him in the deep grave, he awoke loathing her,
But when the weak moment between sleep and waking
Was past, his need of her and his judgment of her
Knew their suspended duel; and he heard her breathing,
Irregularly, gently in the dark.